-
Beyond the Touchscreen
We’ve all seen films that have completely astounded us and with hopes to re-live that first stream of anticipation and excitement we got from viewing it, we opt for seeing the film again but the experience is never really similar. The same can be said about electronics and Steven Levy says it best in stating that “when technology that once astonished us becomes common, gadgets start to seem less compelling.”
During it’s release, I was one of the many that stood on line for seven hours or more with hopes of getting my hands on an iPhone. I could have never justified paying $600 for a phone but what made this situation unique was that the invention was coming from a company who I admire and whose original industrial design and focus on simplicity was both in their product and usage.
Since then, of course we’ve seen a slew of other manufactures implement the touch-screen technology that once distinguished the iPhone from it’s competitors. The most talked about has been the Palm Pre. The phone looks nothing less than impressive but despite it’s slickness, it’s ability to multitask and QWERTY keyboard, it’s still the basic UI we were first astounded with when we saw the iPhone.
Edible Apple says:
It’s not about the UI anymore. Multitouch doesn’t blow people away anymore. The Smartphone battle no longer hinges solely on the UI. Nowadays, what you can do with a smartphone (music, movies, apps) is what drives sales. In that respect, the app store for the iPhone is already off to a commanding, and perhaps insurmountable, lead.
Not to say that touchscreen is no longer appealing because it still is but what has surpassed the fascination of zooming and pinching is what Kyle acknowledges to already exist in the Mac community, which is the presence of “hard work, passion, and creation” all of which has been equally placed in developing the apps that has added vitality to owning an iPhone in the first place, especially “when there’s an app for just about anything.”
The “wowness” of the touchscreen has already been checked off by Apple as a successful feature used to attract more users but now the heart of device lies in the apps. It’s the combination of these two attributes that enhance the experience which is why there’s no surprise that companies like Nokia and BlackBerry have already joined the mix of having developers create and distribute apps under a similar App store business model that Apple established. This whole phenomenon is indeed so far beyond the UI.
